The Masters: The truth about a tradition unapologetic for its exclusion of Blacks and women
Author’s note: The Masters golf tournament on TV is an annual signal that spring is really here.
Green grass, beautiful scenery.
With subdued music and gushing over-the-top announcers, the entire event is presented as “A tradition unlike any other.” The mawkish treatment is over-indulgent and melodramatic, but it is very popular.
As you watch this weekend, I hope you kept in mind that special tradition includes hard-core Jim Crow racism that lasted far past the Civil Rights act of 1964. Its longtime chairman stated “As long as I’m here the players will be all white and the caddies will be all Black.”
The Augusta National Club had no Black member until 1990. Lee Trevino protested by changing his shoes in the parking lot. Black spectators? Hard to find.
They have never apologized.
Women got the same treatment. In 2003 a protest arose against the club’s sexist discrimination. I was doing some guest columns for the Aberdeen American News then and wrote about it.
Reading it now, it’s not as clever as I thought it was at the time, but I’ll revive it (unedited) as a reminder of how wrongheaded and childish the men of the Masters were at that time — and how probably some still are. Here’s my piece from 2003:
The men of Augusta are acting like boys.
Why would grown men not want women in their social club?
Since the dispute over women members at Augusta golf course hit the news I’ve been looking for a report telling us why these guys don’t want girls around. Sure, they are within their legal rights to put up a “No Girls Allowed” sign as a bunch of 8-year-olds in a treehouse might do. Nobody is saying they should be forced by law. Economic and political pressure is being applied and they will either submit to it or they won’t and that will be that.
Most of these men have become wealthy selling things to women customers, employing women workers and succeeding in a country that prospers partly because it fights discrimination. They should have the decency to accept women as equals, but they just don’t want to.
They pontificate about independence and privacy and tradition, but none of those things explains what they fear about having women as equal members and they seem determined to not change. They are a laughingstock already so it can’t get much worse. There must be a reason.
Since we’ve heard no explanations from members, I have five possible areas in which they may have issues:
POWER.
These men are used to interacting with women who are secretaries, waitresses, exotic dancers, and probably second or third wives (perhaps former exotic dancers) who are younger and dumber. It’s one thing to deal with women by saying “Hey, honey, freshen my drink.” It’s quite another to have to actually make conversation.
MANNERS
Maybe these guys really like to let their hair down and not worry about personal habits and social decorum and behave in ways that would be embarrassing around female CEOs doing the old “Pull my finger” routine might get a big laugh out of a waitress trying to get a tip, but a woman executive might not be too impressed.
APPEARANCE
Speaking of letting their hair down, perhaps the Augusta members like to take off their hairpieces to let their heads cool after a long day on the course. They should know their only feature that’s attractive to women anymore is their bank account, but vanity can be blind.
LANGUAGE.
They’ve already had to stop calling the help “colored” since they were forced to let in token black members 10 years ago, and that may have been such a tough transition that they don’t want to make the effort to stop using “babe,” “blondie,” “sweetie,” and similar warm endearments they now use on the staff.
ANXIETY
The confident feeling the old guard has around subservient women might not hold up if they were romantically pursued by a successful, aggressive woman their age. There are some performance handicaps even the pills can’t cure and I don’t mean their golf stroke.
OK, I’m being silly. It’s unfair to stereotype rich, mature, white guys as wrinkled old jerks. But, is this any sillier than what Augusta is doing by saying they won’t let women join just because they are women?
Meanwhile it’s fun watching them try to maintain their dignity as they resist the pressure.
Sorry boys, the dignity ship sailed a long time ago. The Masters has always been one of the phoniest of all sports events and will now be notable as the club that waited 130 years after the Civil War to accept a Black members — and who know how long before they let the girls in.
Author’s note: That old column includes some anachronisms and stuff I wouldn’t say now; things change in almost a quarter-century. But the premise holds — the Augusta members were short-sighted, racist, misogynistic, and deserving of ridicule. About a decade later a woman was accepted as a member, but it’s thought even now there are fewer than 10.
So as you take in the “Tradition unlike any other,” keep in mind that tradition includes some of the worst elements of USA history and embraces a refusal to admit it and apologize.
Also, know that lots of the guys afraid of mixing with the girls and intent on keeping Blacks (who were still a very low percentage of members at the start of this decade) in their caddy suits in 1990 are still there.
Mike Levsen is a former Aberdeen mayor and regular contributor to The South Dakota Standard.
Photo: President Reagan tees up at Augusta National Golf Club, site of the Masters Tournament, in 1983, public domain, wikimedia commons
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